TF2 Mods: The Next Generation

InstantMuffin recently made a buzz over on SPUF by finding evidence that an upcoming TF2 game mode may be called “Robot Destruction”. He’s also a prolific modder whose most recent claim to fame is Prop Hunt: The Next Generation, a remake of one of the most popular TF2 mods out there. Today, he took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about his past work, his current happenings, and what the future may bring.

Picture by EatMyDiction1.

1. How did you first get into modding?

I basically started writing SourceMod plugins around 2010. I usually develop desktop applications. I played a lot of L4D2 back then and a friend had a server. As L4D2 is all about rage I decided to write something I called “Ragemod”. What it did was that it detected whenever someone did something that was typical for L4D rage (kick votes, quitting mid-game, etc.) and gave the other team points for it. During the course of development I actually counted swear words and gave points for them depending on how harsh they were. What happened is that I ended up managing this friend’s server and writing all kinds of smaller stuff for it. After he had to close down his server I came in contact with stice who hosted his own L4D2 server. So the story continued, until we switched to TF2.

2. What inspired you to remake PropHunt, and how did you go about deciding what to change?

Well I discovered PropHunt in August of 2013 and played it with stice and my brother. We liked the mod, however, we were missing some stuff and it was impossible to find both ad/VIP-free and well-managed servers hosted by people with a lot of background knowledge. So the idea was to open up our own PH-server and create the community “GotSticed-Server”. At this point I played around with the old PH-mod and added some stuff over the time. Unfortunately, it has always been an incredible pain to work with because the code was really disorganized, ineffective and sloppy. So the idea of a plain rewrite came up pretty fast, but it never got to that. At some point I had the idea of throwing PH out of the window and creating PropHunt TNG, a mod that fortunately does not share any code with the old PropHunt, and has the distinct features that make it stand out for the players. I have heard people saying it was impossible to do the GMod-like prop selection stuff, but I didn’t care and just did it. I wanted GotSticed to be a community of exceptional skill in terms of plugins and performance, so I went for it and proved them wrong.

3. What advice do you have for community members who’d like to start making their own mods?

Turns out I have already answered that question. Just go for it!

4. Why do you think TF2 is so popular for modding?

It kind of comes down to two things. TF2 is free to play and therefore has an unlimited player base. People may not like TF2, but can still try out an interesting mod they see because they don’t have to buy the game first. Second, the game does a lot of stuff on its own (items and their effects, gamemodes), so it is pretty much a huge playground for modders where they can find already existing stuff and recycle it in the most creative and maybe crazy way possible.

5. Do you work on any other projects?

Yes, of course. I previously wrote our own Dodgeball gamemode with a lot of extras, and the gamemode HuntsmanUT.
I am currently working on porting PropHunt TNG to CSGO, and on the side there is a “mario kart”-like thing in the works for CSS. Also there is a heatmap plugin in the works in collaboration with tf2maps.net.
On a non-gamemode basis there are many many more plugins which help us manage our servers as good and efficient as possible (Remote admin chat, stats, more detailed analytics and detection plugins, a lot of stuff for TNG that helps us collect other data and administrate the server,…).

6. Do you have any theories on any of the potential upcoming TF2 updates, based on what you’ve found?

No. But I hope that “End Of The Line” won’t be a literal farewell to TF2. In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes out.

7. Any closing remarks?

Hmm. I’d like to thank everyone who has been playing on our servers, everyone on KritzKast (who are a bunch of crazy, but very friendly and likeable Brits – Agro :p), FrozenR and backscratch from tf2maps.net, you guys from the Daily SPUF, and last but not least my brother and stice for endulging me.
While I can’t offer you guys muffins over the net (so sad I know), I hope you’ll be fine with checking us out at sticed.com and playing on our servers with us!
I hope to see you guys soon!